The Blues

As I listen to OK Computer, the typical background music for these sad, contemplative moments I cannot figure out what I am meant to do in life. The desire to be good at something, to be smart, not really to show the world how smart I am but to create that sense of self worth is really strong right now. That desire manifests itself sometimes in wanting to be other people but mostly it is about doing the things that they do. To be a stud in law school is not the simple goal. The simple excuse I give for not being the most successful, or at least relatively successful be it in academics or in things like mooting, debating and all the other things that people do is that I don’t apply myself, the day I do it I’ll be as good as them. But right now the scarier thought is maybe I am just not good enough at this, that I have come from another thing which I was bad at which was science to here. I have forgotten how to really apply myself, or maybe I have never done it in the first place. Why don’t I work hard at all is the scary question I have asked myself for a long time.

But today even in situations where I know I will be totally screwed if I don’t buck up or apply myself I don’t. I have not even worked reasonably hard for an exam the day before it for a long time now. It’s a stifling web I find myself being caught in. When I see people going to different countries, to moot or to present papers it actually hurts as to what the hell am I doing here in the first place. I don’t think I have ever done anything I have done well in which has not been at least passively enjoyable. I just cannot work hard in courses where teachers are totally incompetent and which consequently I hate and barely pass or do badly in. A little hard work before the day of the exam or a few days before would make me do well but I can’t bring myself to mug up resolutely like anybody else and hence suffer. Every time I finish a project (which I do on the last last day) I shudder to think of the way I was suffering trying to finish in those last few hours and the shit I did all those days before and every time I do that run from my room to the exam department where I have no idea if I will actually manage to submit it this time.

The worst however is that there are other parts of my life where I will continue to be relatively unhappy whatever I do unless something drastic out of my control happens. Here I can change this and feel better about this aspect of my life but I don’t. The question of why I still can’t answer. Do I want this? Yes, I do. It’s important enough to take away my sense of well being and affect my happiness. Every time I tell myself I will do better next time and screw up I feel worse and worse. Is it that the relative comfort that I get from sitting in front of a laptop to browse Wikipedia(obsessively), Facebook and play FIFA is too hard to give up? I’m sure objectively I know what’s better for me not just in the long run but also what will keep me happier .But, pushing myself and controlling my willpower are things that are so alien right now. Maybe the problem is that these are not emotions that I always feel or thought that I always think. I genuinely have fun for a good part of my life and don’t think about these things.

But, overall I am desperate to create some sense of order in my life. I chase happiness in awesome moments that exhilarate me. Getting drunk at a quad party in the happiest, funnest way, the trippy madness of a Strawberry Fields concert, sitting in a shack in Goa by the sea, the most intimate conversations about life with people, these are the memories I live on. That happiness is beautiful but fleeting, and my amazing highs take me to even worse lows. What I need now is a sense of contentment in life which will not come unless I do the things I am supposed to do in college. The problem with law school is that even though you are putting in little effort academically, you are still not chilling. The rude checks of project submission, repeats make your life even more distressingly hectic and painful. It is time to change and I hope I can. The other problems in my life are no less painful but far more difficult to solve and in this case if not a complete change, maybe an articulation and awareness of this desire will make things relatively better.

How do you experience Music?

One can listen to music in many different ways. There is passive listening, where music is a whirl of pleasent background noise while you are doing something else which may be studying or playing FIFA. And the other is very active, involved listening which often happens when you are discovering a band for the first time. Of course, if you are doing other tasks while listening, the level of involvement in what is being played may be very different. I sometimes have no clue what I'm listening to and sometimes I am singing along in my head.
But a weird thing I do ever since I saw my first live gig at Strawberry Fields 2008 is imagine I'm playing the song on stage. I could be a guitarist or bassist, I'm mostly a vocalist who plays guitar or bass and I'm playing the said song to the crowd at SF. This is not occassionally, I do this a lot, especially if it's some contemporary or indie alternative band I've recently started listening to, or even metal. If it's classic rock, I'm covering that song, if it's new I am performing this on stage. Especially when I hear some amazing new band, I wish it was an Indian band who wrote that song so I could see them live or even better I would be songwriter-frontman of this band who would be the toast of SF!
Unfortunately I know there is some kind of music which Indian rock audiences wouldn't really like, like indie pop or dance-punk with minimal guitar solos which kind of kept spoiling the music for me so I had to will myself to enjoy the music without imagining myself playing it.

Why I can't blog.

Writing requires infinitely more patience than anything else I do. When I'm sitting on my computer I'm either playing FIFA, or wasting a lot of time on Wikipedia or something equally inane. The amount of involvement in doing something like that is really passive, all you're doing is reading, without thinking. The computer is an addiction that has prevented me from doing anything useful at law school. I don't study because most of my day is spent on my laptop. I have wasted countless days, when despite the fact that I'm sleepy, I sit on the laptop after lunch, get up for dinner and then finally turn it off at 3 am when I have a splitting headache and barely get up for class. And I do this almost every day.
Without this addicting machine, I would probably be a different person in college, I would study more and atleast look at what's going on in class. I would read a lot more, I'm actually giving up reading some awesome fiction because of this addiction. All these wikipedia marathons have given me is that I'm better at law school quizzing, because now I know more of these pop culture references which had no idea about when I came here. I can't blog because instead of mustering the effort of typing something, I go into an endless drone of randomness on the internet. Of course, whatever I've ever tried to write has seemed so self conscious and amateur I don't want to write anything.